The verdure inscription reads: "How sir gawaine and sir uwaine went their ways to seek the sangreal but might no wise attain to the sight of it but were brought to shame because of the evil life they led aforetime." Burne-Jones describes the knights as "eaten up by the world — handsome gentlemen set on this world's glory." 1 The heraldic device on the second figure's shield does indeed identify him as Uwaine, although in Malory s text Gawaine had ridden "from Whitsuntide till Michaelmas" without great adventure, before falling in with Ector de Maris. After another eight days, these two arrive at a deserted chapel, where a disembodied voice proclaims: "Knights full of evil faith and of poor belief, these two things have failed you, and therefore ye may not come to the adventures of the Sangreal." Burne-Jones converts this episode into the vision of an angel who bars the door of the chapel, protected by the artist's favorite briar roses; a light from within suggests the presence of the Holy Grail, which the knights are unable to attain. The design in colored chalks is in a private collection, and highly finished pencil studies are known for both mounted figures. 2 For a man with a great fondness for animals, there are very few depictions in Burne-Jones's major works. Those seen here are his most ambitious treatments of the horse, which he described to his studio assistant T. M. Rooke as "a fine orna- ment in a picture — when a knight and his horse look like one animal. I wont seek horses to do, but I won't mind them when they come in. I can't do them anything like as well as some chaps, but I'll get through them somehow." 3 The second of what the artist called "the foiling of the knights," and the fourth panel in the series, depicts the Failure of Sir Launcelot: "Of the quest of lancelot of the lake and how he rode the world round and came to a chapel wherein was the sangreal but because of his sins he might not enter but fell asleep before the holy things and was put to shame in unseem- ly wise." In this darker, more somber image a similar angel appears at the doorway to a chapel, in which again the light emitted through the door implies the presence of the holy vessel; Launcelot is asleep, a reference to the dream in which, in Malory's text, he has a vision of the Grail, while at the same time he recognizes his unworthiness. The subject recalls Rossetti's mural of 1857 for the Oxford Union Society, which has essentially the same composition, in which Burne-Jones acted as the model for the sleeping Launcelot. Studies are to be found in the "Secret" Book of Designs (cat. no. 140). 4 The design in colored chalks is in the same private collection as that for The Failure of Sir Gawaine; a large but looser sketch in chalks and gray wash may relate to the later version of the sub- ject in oils, painted in 1895-96 (see cat. no. 162). 1. Memorials, vol. 2, p. 208. 2. The study of Sir Gawaine is reproduced in Wood 1907, pi. 25, and that for Sir Uwaine, signed and dated 1893, was sold at Christie's, November 8, 1996, lot 43. 3. Lago 1981, p. 81 (entry for January 8, 1896). A plaster model of a horse, its head tilted just as in this composition, is to be seen beneath the table in a photograph of the home studio at The Grange reproduced in Cartwright 1894, p. 31. 4. British Museum, London (1899-7-13-461, 463, 464).
This sequence of tapestries was originally designed for William Knox D'Arcy, for the dining room of his house, Stanmore Hall in Middlesex. Several further versions were woven later. Birmingham's 'The Failure of Sir Gawain' is one of three tapestries commissioned in 1895 by the industrialist Laurence Hodson, for his house Compton Hall near Wolverhampton. The subject matter is based on the 15th century text Le Morte D'Arthur (The Death of Arthur) by Sir Thomas Malory. It tells the story of the spiritual quest by the knights of King Arthur's round table for the Holy Grail, the cup from which Jesus and the disciples drank at the Last Supper. Here the third scene depicts two knights who failed in their quest because they had previously led sinful lives. The story told how after many days of riding they stopped to rest and pray at a deserted chapel, but were told that they could not enter. Sir Uwaine is shown on the left, and Sir Gawaine is nearest the angel, who is barring the entrance to the chapel. A brilliant light shines from within, suggesting the presence of the Holy Grail. The next scene in the series showed the failure of Sir Lancelot, but this subject is not in Birmingham's collection. Purchased and presented by subscribers, 1907.